June 2010

A Workshop on Self-assembly in Biology and Materials Science is jointly organized by Mathias Lösche and Jaime Ruiz-Garcia (UASLP). The worskshop isthe 7th in a series that was originated in the 1990s and will take place in Bahias de Huatulco between June-08 and June-12, 2010. More ...

April 2010

Rima Bydvytyte's work is featured on the Cover of Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics (ABB). A paper that quantifies the size-dependent toxicity of amyloid-β (Aβ) oligomers, emerging from a collaboration between the Institute of Biochemistry in Vilnius, the Kaunas University of Medicine and NIH-supported our Alzheimer's research group, appeared in the latest issue of ABB [ABB 496 (2010), 84]. Rima, a Vilnius graduate student in Gintaras Valincius' group, spent two extended research visits here at CMU last year, which were supported by the CMU P01 grant. She and the CMU post-docs Matteo and Radu performed the physico-chemical characterization of the Aβ oligomer particles in this study.

April 2010

Our collaborator, Prof. Kris Noel Dahl (CMU Depts. of Biomedical Eng. and Chem. Eng.), receives NSF CAREER award to support her research on Genome Regulation and Nuclear Rheology. Congratulations, Kris!

August 2009

CMU Physics alumnus Avishek Kumar (M.S. 2009) receives the GAANN fellowship for graduate study at the Arizona State University Dept. of Physics. Avishek, who performed research in the Lösche group between 2007 and 2009, moved to ASU this Fall where he received the fellowship that covers a $30,000 stipend for a year, as well as textbook and travel funds. Congratulations, Avishek – and all the best!

April 2009

Tristan Bereau wins Guy C. Berry Graduate Research Award. In 2009, the Berry Award, recognizing excellence in research performed by MCS graduate students, goes to Tristan for his development of coarse-grained peptide models. Tristan performs his research under the guidance of Markus Deserno.

April 2009

Alex made a name in experimental research on viral genome packing, viral assembly and the molecular details of infection mechanisms of bacteriophages. Among various honors, he was awarded the 2008 Hagbergs Prize of the Swedish Royal Academy for his ground-breaking research in virus biophysics. He is currently a Lecturer and Associate Professor in Lund's Dept. of Biochemistry and will join CMU in June, 2009. More ...

January 2009

An NIH Program Grant (1 P01 AG032131) is awarded to the Lösche / Deserno / Valincius / Hall and Glabe collaboration. For the next 3 years, the collaboration is funded to study the imact of Amyloid-β on membranes.

December 2008

Study on the molecular origins of membrane damage by soluble oligomers of the Alzheimer's peptide amyloid β appears in the Biophysical Journal. This work is a collaboration with the Valincius lab in Vilnius (Lithuania) and with Jim Hall's lab at UC Irvine. Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy and Neutron Reflection on tethered bilayers suggest that the membrane damage inferred by Aβ is different from that inferred by the membrane pore, α-hemolysin.Read more: Valincius et al., Biophys. J. 95 (2008), 4845.

December 2008

NIRT-postdoc Frank Heinrich presents keynote lecture about his research on the interaction of amyloid-β oligomers with membranes at the European Conference on Neutron Scattering (ECNS 2007) in Lund, Sweden. Find the abstract here.

June 2007

Graduate Research School a great success ...

The International Graduate Research School Nanoscale Engineering of the Biointerface in Playa del Aro, Spain, was attended by 42 graduate students and post-docs of 8 universities or research institutions. 12 lecturers were from 9 institutions located in 6 countries. Work in progress was discussed in 2 poster sessions. More ...

May 2007

Markus Deserno's work at the Max-Planck Institute for Polymer Science in Mainz, Germany, has led to the development of a realistic membrane model which is computationally so efficient that large membrane patches can now be modeled for long time snapshots. This has been exploited in a ground-breaking investigation of protein-membrane interactions that introduce curvature into the membrane and lead to vesiculation – a key process in biology. Deserno arrives as a faculty member in the CMU Physics Depertment in September. More ...

May 2007

Nanoscale Engineering of the Biointerface

A Max-Planck / NSF Graduate Research School on Polymer Materials is held from May-28 to June-01 in Playa del Aro, Spain.
This is your chance to meet fellow graduate students, post-docs, and lecturers from 9 research groups in 6 countries, and learn about exciting research on biomembrane models. The number of participants is limited to 60.

March 2007

Biological Physics theory search closed

Markus Deserno joins Carnegie Mellon as an Associate Professor in Physics after turning out top in a world-wide search. He will arrive at CMU in the Fall of 2007 and will perform theoretical research on, and computational simulations of biomembrane systems using the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and a new, state-of-the-art computer cluster, yet to be established in the Physics Department.

Markus Deserno, Head of the junior research group Membrane Theory & Simulation at the Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany. CV, see here.

January 2007

Physical and Chemical Aspects of Molecular Biology, An International Workshop on Current Problems in Complex Fluids,
Hotel Camino Real, Puebla, México, January 4 – 6, 2007

July 2006

Lab renovation

Two large laboratory units in the core of the 6th floor of Wean Hall have been remodeled from scratch. Making them fit for experimental work on biological and surface science problems has involved reducing dust emission and separating them into smaller units.

May 2006

Part of our work at the NIST Center for Neutron Research in Gaithersburg, MD, is devoted to the design of novel surface-stabilized membrane mimics, so-called tethered bilayer lipid membranes, or tBLMs. More ...